A month in the books,  all I can say is wow, things just don’t always come out as you predict, its surprising how baseball moves in mysterious ways. I am sure no one predicted this month, one wild wild one. I will go over a variety of different stories I think are worth mentioning for the bizarreness of the league.

WORLD SERIES HANGOVER??

The Astros and Phillies put up a show of the ages this past fall classic, both teams competing with a high leverage pitching staff and an overpowering lineup, it was a battle but the Astros took home the gold in 6 games, adding another title to their victories in the past 5 years. Flash-forward  now and things may look a little different than expected for these juggernaut teams. The Phillies pitching staff has gone back to its pre 2022 form with more underlying troubles in their staff it seems all hope has been lost for the NL Pennant winning ball club. The two aces that lead their team to the World Series last year both have an ERA well over 4.50. Aaron Nola’s is even uglier than Wheeler, having a 5.40 ERA and a 4.12 FIP in his contract year. The bullpen could be stronger, it is led by Jose Alvarado but besides that there hasn’t been much success come the Phillies pitching, putting them ranked 13/15 in NL clubs and going right back to 3rd place. With high expectations the Phillies fail expectations with the underwhelming results seen.

FOOLS GOLD OR DANGER?

Are the Pirates back in contention? Oh boy this is fun, baseball is not the same with the Pirates not being relevant. The Pirates are coming together  amazing this past month, it looks like a lot of hope is on the horizon. A top 10 farm system paired with an equally underrated offseason and trades has put them on a path of immediate success. They are 10 games over .500 and have just finished a series dub over the Dodges! Trades are finally starting to shape with most significant ones being the Quintana trade that brought them 23 year old star RHP Johan Oviedo, trades that brought them franchise star, Bryan Reynolds who also became the first 100 million player in franchise history. We are seeing a second coming of the Guardians with how they had many unproven players prove themselves to push the team to the playoffs. I sense the same thing with the Pirates, these pesky pirates are being led by veteran McCutchen and the youngsters are coming out to play and play well. The pitching staff needs a bit of help but it doesn’t matter when they are 10 games over .500, first time this happened since 2015. The gears are finally back in motion and they aren’t the stopping! The Pirates are taking this league by storm!

Wild Wild West

The Rangers are surprising so many people, like the Twins and Pirates no one expected them to be in first place. Everyone knew the Ranger were making noise, but not all thought their team would match the Astros. The Rangers are one game ahead of the Astros the most recent World Series winner. You know your rotation is top 3 when your second best pitcher is Jacob Degrom. Based on stats and the performance of April, Martin Perez has led the staff with an ERA under 3.00 and an ERA+ 75% better than average. It’ll be his second year in a row with an ERA under 3.00 for the Rangers. Expect big things with the Rangers, they have already won the first series 2-1 over the Astros. The competition is real and Texas is on fire.

Peter Morgan Alonso

Pete Alonso has done so much for the Mets since debuting in 2019. He is already top 5 in franchise history for HRs (156) Pete already has 10 HRS and a league leading 23RBIS in 25 games. We’ve seen the power he brings and if he isn’t hitting the Mets aren’t winning. Simple as that, the Mets are 9-2 when Alonso is hitting and 7-8 when he’s slumping. We know what he is capable of, we’ve seen him lead the league in HRs (53,2019) and RBIs (131,2022). He is on pace for another season of greatness, but I sense another Mets star becoming a serious MVP candidate as well.

Zac Gallen CY Season in the making

Last year the Milkman went 44.2 innings of scoreless pitching and has the franchise record for the longest streak of scoreless innings. He is back at it with with 28 scoreless innings already under his belt. He is top 5 in all the pitching stats this year. He is showing he is back for more. 2023 is the year of Zac Gallen.

Max Scherzer cheating???

Wednesday 4/19 Max Scherzer was checked in the 4th inning of the Dodgers Mets game. The umpires have already checked him 3 times at this point, so you would assume the 4th check would just because of sporadic checks, but nope they suspected it was illegal substance and kicked him out of the game. They deemed the amount of rosin and sweat mixture he used was making the ball too tacky. Apparently too much rosin and sweat is an illegal substance. He received 10 game suspension. 

There has been so much going one this month it’ll be impossible to put it all in one blog. Baseball is fun and this month has shown it.